French fashion parade keeps reputation afloat

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): For the last nine months, magazines and newspapers have devoted copious pages to the travails of Le Malaise Francais.

That's in reference to the French living in France constantly complaining of their land's economic problems, be it 12 percent unemployment, perpetual labor strikes or the European Union's demands for increased trade liberalization. Add to these woes Jean Marie Le Pen's far-right brigade chanting "Out With the Immigrants", those very same people who bring a critical vibrancy to Paris' arts and cultural scene. Its enough to bring many Parisian into a crisis of identity and confidence, and the drama- loving French love a good crisis.

Even that bastion of French superiority, la moda, finds its pampered ego bruised. This spring, the longest queues at Paris' pret-a-porter shows were not to see French designers, but British imports John Galliano and Alexander McQueen. In Paris, I heard firsthand rumblings on the street questioning why Bernard Arnault, president of fashion conglomerate LVMH (Louis Vuitton- Moet Hennesy), chose McQueen over local talent Jean-Paul Gaultier. Parisians welcomed Arnault's throning of the enigmatic Galliano at Christian Dior, but were less elated at his positioning of 27-year-old McQueen at Givenchy and of American Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton.

The French fashion crisis deepened last month when Karl Lagerfeld, monarch at Chanel, announced that his eponymous label was going bust. Worries escalated this week when Nina Ricci let go of half its couture staff, and cosmetics giant Clarins took over Thierry Mugler. Black-clad Parisians are holding on to their inimitable sangfroid, but few insiders deny that French fashion's financial plunge and growing attachment to corporate interests is a far cry from its glory days of Paul Poiret in the 1900s, Coco Chanel in the 1930s, Christian Dior in the 1950s and Yves Saint Laurent in the 1970s.

Fashion students note the importance of the past, but consumers often forget that it was Poiret who took women out of corsets, Chanel who had women in knee-length skirts rather than floor-dusters, and Saint Laurent who put women in pants. The fact is that the French repeatedly revolutionized fashion and, consequently, the lives of the women who wore them. Sure, the French may act as if design artistry is part of, as they say, les acquis sociaux (entitlements), but their arrogance is not without basis. Years ago, when fashion's influence in dictating hemlines emanated from select geniuses, the chosen few were all French.

Visible export

That's a fact not lost on Jakarta's French Embassy and Plaza Indonesia, who are jointly putting on the French Fashion Parade next week at Plaza Indonesia's La Moda Cafe. The week-long promotion, highlighted by daily fashion shows by French fashion houses, was launched on Thursday with a gala dinner called "An Evening in Paris". France's Ambassador to Indonesia Thierry de Beauce and Director of Plaza Indonesia Realty Willy Sidharta opened the festivities.

When asked if fashion was France's most important export, Ambassador de Beauce answered, "Well, no, but fashion is France's most visible and prestigious export".

It's a shame the fashion show failed to properly show the expanse of France's prestige. Kenzo's flower-print shirt-dresses opened the show, worn by chipper models in floral-bouquet hats with baguettes and shopping bags slung under their willowy arms. Oh la la, observers may have murmured as more models bounced down the catwalk in colorful stripes, as if traipsing through the greens of Les Tuileries.

Another, in a fire-engine red Claude Montana skirt-suit, strolled down carrying a poodle. French fashion indeed, and fun to watch, but straight out of Baedeker guidebooks rather than the halls of Les Ecoles de Haute Couture.

Even the genius of Christian Lacroix, with all his color-blind brilliance, was shown monochrome, albeit vividly so, the sculptural suits on show in bright orchard colors like lemon yellow and tangerine.

The Christian Dior collection was more impressive, the plunging necklines of its satin suits transforming the collarbone into a provocative erogenous zone. And the lace bodice shown in the finale was pure artistry and craftsmanship, French finery at its finest.

Yet that was it, a short, unfulfilling teaser of what the French can do. Perhaps shows later in the week, such as Chevignon today, Lanvin tomorrow and Girbaud on Tuesday, will be better proof of France's design spirit.

But with foie gras on the dinner table and Edith Piaf trilling through the speakers, the event was undeniably glamorous. Unfortunately, the setting was less so. Situated in the atrium of Plaza Indonesia, La Moda has an open-air ambience that is both blessing and blight. The high ceiling imbues the cafe with a feeling of space often missing in Jakarta, but this space is also walled by shops and an ever increasing crowd of shoppers. Whether by accident or design, La Moda feels like an aquarium whose well- heeled fishes are forever ogled at by envious onlookers.

That sense of distinction is precisely the point, says Willy Sidharta. "Many people say to me, if you're eating a two-thousand rupiah mie (noodle), maybe you don't want people to see you. But if you're eating expensive food, then you want to be seen," he said. Sidharta added that high-society ladies need a place to rest their stilletoed feet in between shopping sessions, and that this place had to be "high-class".